


The Ties That Bind Us

by Applemysteries



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applemysteries/pseuds/Applemysteries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Neptune only cares about who you are versus who you’re not.</em> A gang banger, a murderer's daughter, and the search for something that's better than surviving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties That Bind Us

**1\. Hector**

He’s nine when it happens. His dad’s girlfriend-of-the-week pulls a .22 caliber from the waistband of her sagging, two sizes too small jeans, and points into the face of the fifteen year old girl standing behind the counter. There’s only three other people in the shop besides them, a greasy haired father squeezing his son’s arm just a little too tight, and a salt and peppered grandma. Neither notice Anita brandishing her weapon, or, if they do notice, they don’t care.

“Give me all the money in the register,” Anita says casually, like there aren’t security cameras capturing her crime this very second. Like she isn’t pointing a loaded gun into a child’s face.

He expects the teenager to scream, or to scramble for an emergency call the police button, or to flinch at least, considering her situation. But she opens the cash register, counts some bills and puts them aside, handing the rest to Anita.

“Don’t I get that too?” Anita smiles, her fake nails reflecting the sunlight into the mirror behind the counter, distorting the image so that when Hector looks into it he doesn’t recognize himself, or this place, or any of it.

The girl blows a bubble, the scent of watermelon so strong that he can feel his own mouth salivating. He wonders if they’ll have any more watermelon flavored gum at home, or if his sisters probably got to it all by now. _It’s probably gone_ , he thinks, fingering the edge of a nearby packet. He could just slip it into his pocket and nobody would notice.

The bubble pops, and the girl shakes her head. “Nah,” she says. “I need that money for this month’s rent.”

In TV shows or video games the girl, Cynthia, according to the name tag, would get a fancy new hole in her head right about now. Instead, in the real world, Anita nods, pockets the money, flips the safety back onto the gun, and tucks it back out of sight.

“Let’s go, kid,” she calls behind her shoulder, already leaving the store.

He eyes the pack of gum again, as he goes to follow her, Cynthia distracted as she picks at her nail polish, but ultimately he leaves it behind. His mother, from what he can remember anyway, always made a big stink about how stealing wasn’t right and how she’d better not ever catch any of her kids doing it. So he leaves it behind. There might be some at home anyway.

Anita doesn’t use the money for anything respectable like rent; instead, she makes him stand on a street corner with her for three hours while she waits for her supplier to come by. When he does, she hands him every last dollar she has on her in exchange for a little baggie of heroin. It looks like a rip off to him, but Anita seems happy with her purchase and he just wants to go home and get that damn piece of gum anyway.

Of course, when he gets home, his suspicions are proven right. There’s an empty wrapper of watermelon gum in the trash. He contemplates throwing a fit about it -- demanding to know why his sisters can’t chew any of the other flavors of gum in the whole world, especially since they all know watermelon is his favorite -- but he knows it would just be a waste of his time and energy. He might as well be alone already. Anita and his sister Nicole are huddled over the bag of heroin like it’s god’s greatest gift to mankind. He rolls his eyes and leaves them to it; the stuff looks like brown sugar, and he really doesn’t get the appeal.

Eleven hours later, 3:13am, and he really, really doesn’t get the appeal any further. Nicole’s face is covered in vomit, Josie, his youngest sister, won’t stop screaming, and his father’s on the phone frantically repeating, _“¿Qué se supone que debo hacer con el cuerpo?”_  

Eventually, his father snaps the phone shut and ushers them both out of the room, closing the door behind him. Anita is sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, drinking steadily from a bottle of wine. He has the sudden urge to hit her, demand to know what the hell that stuff was and why she didn’t take care of his sister better. His desire for blind rage is forgotten when the door swings open and the Navarro patriarch walks in, immediately being lead to the bedroom.

His son, Eli, accompanies him. He knows Eli vaguely from church and from school, but the kid is so tiny, smaller than average for his age, so Hector’s never bothered to get to know him beyond any details Chardo has shared about his younger cousin. Now though, now he studies Eli. Watches him take in Anita’s condition on the couch, watches his eyes narrow and his lip curl. Watches him storm over and yank that wine bottle straight out of her goddamn hand, dumping the remnants down the sink.  

He wishes he’d had the courage, wishes he had the courage even now to tell her off, tell her that she’s the reason his sister is lying in her bed, dead, but he can’t. Eli does it for him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Eli spits at her, and damn, what a mouth for an eight year old. “She’s dead because you thought it was okay to give a sixteen year old girl heroin.”

Anita rolls her eyes, the most emotion he’s seen her have all day. “I told her she had to sleep on her side,” she breezes, as if it’s Nicole’s fault, as if that’s the end of it.

She rises from the couch and grabs another wine cooler from the fridge. Hector moves to stop her, his hands curled tight into fists, but Eli grabs his arm.

“She’s not worth it,” he says, and it sounds even deadlier than when he’d been dropping the F-bomb. “Do you know who sold her the drugs?”

Hector shrugs. “Some _guero_. I think he was wearing a green t-shirt.”

Eli acts like this information means something, muttering curse words under his breath before jabbing Hector in the chest. Hard.

“We’ve got to show them that we won’t be treated like this! That we ain’t their fucking graveyard!”

He wants to ask Eli what he means, but then they’re carrying Nicole’s body out to the car, and he doesn’t get a chance.

Anita lasts longer than a week with his father. She makes it two whole years, an impressive record. She’s not a good motherly figure by any means, considering that she’s the reason his sister's body got thrown into a dumpster, but she’s a good example of what it takes to be truly outside of the law, unafraid of consequences. He’s never seen her flinch once, never seen her cry, never seen her do anything but either take the punches or evade them.

He asks her once, out of overwhelming curiosity, how she does it, how she doesn’t care about anything.

“It’s easy,” she tells him. “Anything you care about, anyone you care about is a weapon. And one day, they’ll get used against you. The second that happens, you’re dead.” She tips his chin up, forcing him to look her in the eye. He thinks this is closest they’ve ever come to a meaningful conversation. “It isn’t about not caring. It’s about surviving.”

The next morning she’s gone. His dad moves on to Ashley, and Bettina, and Vanessa, and Hector moves on to the PCHers, first lead by the Reaper, and then by Eli, who goes by Weevil now.

It’s slow going at first, his realization about what a shitty hand they got dealt in life. His realization that nobody in the entire goddamn town is looking out for them, not even themselves. It makes the not caring part hard, makes surviving difficult, movie reels of everyone he might’ve let down playing in his head, thinking about those three hours he stood on a street corner so some white Irish dick could hand him the death of his sister. But once Reaper goes missing, the not caring becomes easy. Because the Reaper could’ve been anybody, could’ve been him, but it wasn’t. And Neptune only cares about who you are versus who you’re not, and he’s not missing. He’s surviving, and he’s damn fucking happy about it. He doesn’t tell this to Weevil, though. Weevil, who can’t seem to let go of sentimental attachments. Being under Weevil’s regime is like waiting for a house of cards to come tumbling down. He knows Weevil’s leadership is going to end in destruction and chaos because Weevil doesn’t have what it takes. Sure, he’s got the anger and he’s got the power, the menace, but he doesn’t know how to let people go. Sooner or later, one of the people he couldn’t let go of is gonna drag Weevil down with them.

Her name winds up being Lilly Kane. She’s a stuck up two-faced bitch, dating the smarmiest motherfucker he’s ever had the misfortune to meet, with only one redeemable quality: her perky breasts. Well those, and the way she can swing her hips. The girls a hellion, strings guys from the _barrio_ along and then dumps them once she’s had her fill of danger and excitement. But Weevil likes her. Likes something about her; the lilt of her voice, or her smooth skin, or her shiny, bouncy hair, or hell, Hector doesn’t know, but it’s something. Because when Marisol Reyes goes missing, Weevil doesn’t say a damn word.

Instead, almost two years later, Weevil tells them that it was Logan Echolls who really killed the Kane girl, and they all go out on a manhunt. It’s Weevil’s undoing, his inability to let go of that stupid blonde _puta_ , and it gets Felix killed.

Felix’s death affects him differently than Reaper’s did, though. He’s still alive. He still survived it, but he’s angry. Fucking livid that a rich white boy got to put another brown boy into the ground. Livid that Felix is only dead because Weevil couldn’t get over one white girl’s goddamned pussy. He gets that graveyard comment now.

Scumbag’s car is bright fucking yellow, as if anyone needed further proof as to what an overcompensating shit stain Logan Echolls was. Bright fucking yellow, so it’s easy to spot, parked right across the street from the Sunset Cliffs apartment complex.

He can see his own reflection as he drives up behind the car, growing larger and larger until he’s too close and it slinks into the shadows, out of sight. There’s someone else in the car with him, Veronica Mars, probably, their mouths fusing together and then breaking apart in a constant rhythm. She’s not his target, but it’s clear from her current behavior that she’s picked her side, and it isn’t Hector’s.

He raises the shotgun and poises it over the shape of Echolls’ head.

Tonight, he’s gonna start a new graveyard.

**2\. Jessie**

_“He didn’t want to leave you with your mother.”_

It’s a phrase that plays on and on in her head. Every time her mother goes on a screaming tirade, leaving Bruno sobbing, huddled in some corner, afraid of enraging her further. Every time her mother comes home from work, slams her purse down on the table, and tells Jessie what a worthless, unintelligent, waste of space she is. Bemoaning her misfortunes of having a cheating husband -- now a dead cheating husband --  and two fucking kids always wanting and needing and begging. It’s a phrase that plays every time her mother mumbles under her breath about “Carla the Cunt.”

Of course, at the end of the day, regardless of her father’s somewhat ambiguous best intentions, he still left. He still had a fancy exit strategy letter all typed out in Times New Roman, 12 point font. Taking her and Bruno with him still, ultimately, wasn’t part of it. He was going to leave them behind; he just hadn’t gotten around to it before he plummeted into the Pacific Ocean.

Well, a tip of the hat to you then, Cassidy Casablancas, whichever bits of your brain matter still remain lodged into the cement outside of Neptune’s richest hotel, for ensuring that Dad had to at least leave life insurance for his good ol’ kids behind, instead of just crippling abandonment issues.

Not that she has abandonment issues. Or mommy issues, for the record. No, what she has is Carla the Cunt’s voice floating through her head at all hours of the day and a desire to step off the roof of the Neptune Grand, or spend an eternity having her dead body be snacked on by the fishes. But then, of course, she doesn’t want to leave Bruno alone with her mother. So thanks a fucking lot Carla, for falling in love with her father. And thanks to you as well, Dad, for falling in love back, and for driving fucking school buses for a living. And thanks, Mom, love the fact that you’re a raging bitch, sure does keep things interesting.

So, no. Jessie Elizabeth Doyle has neither abandonment issues or mommy issues, or any issues whatsoever. All she has is a little brother named Bruno, who deserves better, and a full ride scholarship offer to SAIC burning a hole in her pocket. Figuratively, because really, she keeps it stuffed under her mattress so that no one can find it. Mom would tell her to go, and then complain about Jessie leaving her all alone, while Bruno would tell her to go and act happy for her, and then cry into his pillow every single night while she was gone. It’s better if they don’t know. It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything, anyway. It’s only her dream school. She’s only wanted to go there since she was five.

May 29th, 2008, sees Jessie walking across the makeshift stage in the gym and receiving her diploma. Bruno cries, Mom claps, and they get ice cream from the McDonalds drive thru afterwards. She tries not to think about how her father would’ve picked her up and spun her around, and how she would’ve pealed with laughter. How he would’ve wheedled her mother into going out somewhere nice for ice cream, somewhere like Coldstone where it’s four dollars for a cone, rather than ninety nine cents. She tries not to think about Carla and _he didn’t want to leave you alone with your mother._

August 25th, 2008, sees Jessie walking into Neptune Community College for the first time ever. It’s the first day of classes, and while her mom put up a big stink about how art was just a waste of time and money, Jessie did her time bagging groceries at Sac ‘n’ Pack, and decided she could afford -- no, she fucking _deserved_ one of the art classes this shithole school could provide. No surprise, it’s her favorite. Her teacher, Mr. Fentworth, is remarkable, Jessie actually finds herself intrigued and passionate and engaged for the first time in a long time. She drops by the school office immediately after his class, drops classes like Economics and Business 101 and Linguistics, signs up for whichever art classes can still take her instead. Mom freaks out screams and shouts for, like, five hours about how Jessie is wasting her time and her money and her _life_ and she just can’t believe her _misfortune_ in having a child whose head is so far up her own ass. But Jessie doesn’t care. She’s thinking about the smooth, crisp lines she got to draw with charcoal today, and how, later in the year, she’ll get to sculpt things out of clay, and wear aprons splattered with paint. She’s thinking about being happy. She doesn’t hear any words; not her mother’s, and not Carla’s.

January 12th, 2009, and Jessie falls in love. Head over heels, breath completely taken away, fuck me up the ass, collapsing into the nearest stool and making a damn fool of herself, love. Her name is Sarah. She smells like spring; like wildflowers blooming, a bird’s first morning chirp. She has thick, dark hair that dances in the sunlight and soft, copper skin that speaks of nothing but warmth, of never being cold again. They’re in sculpture class together, and it’s a little Ghost, their hands gliding over the clay, giggling as clumps fly and tangle in their eyelashes. But January 29th, 2009, when they make love for the first time, Jessie knows she has never felt anything more real. Tangled up in lilac sheets, the scent of sweetpea and fresh cut grass wafting in from the windows, Sarah’s hand making deft strokes over a creamy piece of parchment, charcoal lines uniting to create two women, hand in hand, conquering the world. Sarah’s place begins to feel like home, the way home has never felt, but the way Jessie knows it’s supposed to.

March 16th, 2009, and Jessie moves in with Sarah. It isn’t even a decision really, it’s just the logical thing to do. She spends most of her time over there, has no desires to ram her head into a wall until it bursts open while she’s there, and she can’t fathom spending a single second longer than necessary apart from the person she loves. To an outside observer, she knows it seems like it’s all happening too fast, but Jessie can feel in her bones that they were meant for nobody else but each other. Bruno hugs her tightly, makes plans with her to visit, and have video game tournaments that weekend. She has a fleeting flash of guilt about the fact that she’s leaving him behind, about the fact that he can’t come with her, about the fact that maybe she wouldn’t take him even if he could, but he flicks her arm and he looks like he gets it, so she lets the load lighten and relishes being carefree. Mom frowns, rants about how in the hell Jessie expects her to make rent without her, and about how when Jessie realizes this “loving-a-girl nonsense” is just a phase not to come crawling back, and Jessie looks her dead in the eye and says, “I would never.”

They move out to Woodstock, Vermont, when they’re 35, Sarah got a great job offer to run some art gallery, and Jessie can put paint on a canvas wherever, so they move. Their new home is this little two bedroom place, with a light green paint job, and bright orange flowers lining the walkway. It’s heaven. They christen it, the only way it’s acceptable to christen anything, and then they wrap themselves up in the bedsheets and stare up at the stars from outside.

“Talk to me,” Sarah requests, curling her body onto Jessie’s lap, eyelids already turning heavy and beginning to flutter closed.

“What do you want to talk about?” Jessie asks, playing with the wisps of Sarah’s hair.

“Anything.”

“I think I was haunted,” she confides quietly. “After my father died, for a while there, I thought I was stuck. I thought I was gonna have to live with my mother forever and just be unhappy. But then I’d think about my father, and how he died stuck, trapped in a relationship that he didn’t want to be in, unable to hold the hand of the person he loved and declare to the world that he loved her. And I’d think about Bruno, and how _I_ love him, and how I’d never ever want him to feel that way, want him to feel like he didn’t get to make any of his own choices. That he just had to let other people control him even if their decisions were making him miserable. And I thought that if I wanted those things for Bruno, how could I not want those things for myself? So I made the choice to leave it behind, leave Bruno behind, even though it broke my heart to do it.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

She looks down at Sarah, reaches out her hand and begins tracing a single finger down the curve of her back. She thinks about happiness, and home, and a sense of belonging. She thinks about Carla and how the man she loved wound up at the bottom of the sea and she had to spend the rest of her life without him, all because he was too afraid to make his own choices. If she’d stayed with Bruno, with her mother, then she never would’ve gotten to be with Sarah, with the person that she loves more than she has ever loved anything. It’s unfathomable.

She leans down, and presses a kiss to Sarah’s forehead.

“No.”

**3\. Jessie and Hector**

Jessie’s 38 when her mother dies. It isn’t anything sinister, like an ashtray to the head. Or was it an oscar that split that Kane girls head wide open? Either way, it isn’t anything like that. There’s no bombs planted on buses, no casual backwards steps off of the second highest building in the County, there’s just a fatal stroke, and then a phone call from Bruno saying, “Mom’s dead.”

Their flight lands at 8:38am in San Diego, California. The drive from San Diego to Neptune takes roughly an hour; she imagines it would take longer if there was ever such a thing as traffic, but as a rule of thumb people are usually leaving Neptune, not driving into the place for a visit.

Jessie has no problem driving in Vermont, but Neptune isn’t Vermont, so Sarah sits behind the wheel and expertly drives them past every scenic cliff that California has to offer. Jessie’s palms get a little clammy at each one, but Sarah keeps chattering on about their upcoming holiday party and before she even knows it, they’re parked outside her brothers house, safe and sound.

The funeral is a small affair, as, unsurprisingly, Randi Doyle née Wagner had very few friends, limited family members, and the co workers who could be bothered to look at her face for a time period in which they were not getting paid were only there so that they could dance on her grave the moment her children looked away.

As they’re walking out of the church, headed towards their cars so that they can play follow the leader on the way to Neptune’s only cemetery, they pass by a small gathering of pastel clad people, all cooing over a broad smiling newborn baby, dressed in standard baby girl, about-to-be-baptized attire.

The taller of the two males, sporting a light green striped button down shirt and iron pressed khakis, looks up as the clacking sound of her heels goes by. For just a split second their eyes meet and she stumbles into Sarah who catches her arm, and coos into her ear, voice all soft and concerned.

_It’s a blustery October evening, unusually cold for this time of year. Of course, they’re all huddled around tea light candles on the edge of a cliff where eight people plummeted to their deaths earlier that week, so chances are the place is haunted._

_Hector’s crouched by Cervando’s memorial, rosary in hand, when a dinky little car pulls up and two blonde girls get out. Veronica Mars being one of them, of course. He stands up all menacing like, ready to loom over them and remind Veronica that she has no damn business being here, when the unfamiliar girl stalks right up to him and demands, “move your memorial over to the side a little.”_

_Veronica Mars entirely forgotten, he gives her his sole attention, infuriated at her request. “Fuck off, blondie,” he barks, but the girl is unmoved._

_“It’s Jessie, first of all, not blondie. And second of all, if you don’t move that memorial over to the side a little, I will.”_

_He cackles at her, genuinely amused by this little midget thinking she has any power over him. She has no idea what he’s capable of, no idea the things he’s done._

_She looks hurt by his laughter, and Veronica is calling to her that maybe this was a bad idea, but the girl sticks to her guns and brushes past him, dragging Cervando’s stuff over to the left._

_“Hey!” He shouts gripping her arm and yanking her away. “Don’t fucking touch that!”_

_“I need to move it so I can put something up for my dad, okay?” Her voice cracks and he releases her arm, slowly. “He was the driver.”_

_He shifts his jaw in discomfort. He knows what it’s like to know the truth so resolutely and have nobody else, well, hardly anybody else, believe you. Of course, she got eventually proven right, and he’s still waiting for that._

_“Fine,” he relents. “You can put your memorial up here. But that little bitch,” he points a hard, unforgiving finger at Veronica. “She can’t fucking come anywhere near me.”_

_Jessie nods, says something to Veronica that convinces her to drive off and then comes back next to Hector, arranging her flower displays and her poster board and lighting her votive candles._

_They stay there all night. Just them, and the crashing waves, and the heavy, unbearable weight of the people they loved._

The man -- Hector -- nods at her in recognition and then follows his group into the church, their interaction over. She smiles at Sarah, and loops their arms together, walking away from her past and into her future.

//

“Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

They all clap as the water is poured over Leticia Ana Navarro, cleansing her for the new world. Little Letty gurgles happily as she's passed into Jade’s arms, leaving the pool of water empty, looking as if no one had been there at all, save for the gentle ripples.

“So, what’s it feel like to be a godfather?” Eli questions, while patting Hector vigorously on the back.

Hector stares into the depths of the water, seeing his own reflection glimmering at the surface. He inches closer, until he could see every curve and every eyelash mirrored in the water beneath him. For the first time, in a long time, he liked what he saw.

He turns back to face Eli, feeling whole and at peace.

“It feels like a happy ending,” He answers truthfully.  

“A happy ending, huh?” Eli repeats softly, eyes lost and far away as he gazed at his family. “I think I like the sound of that.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I would like to thank Kait (imkait of the tumblr world) for being the most beautiful, wonderful, hilarious, kind, and murderous beta to ever exist. Any remaining mistakes are my own.  
> 2\. I would also like to thank Marlyne (tatasmaslany of the tumblr world) for checking over my spanish for me so that my spanish speaking characters were, you know, actually speaking spanish.  
> 3\. PS. “¿Qué se supone que debo hacer con el cuerpo?” means, "What am I supposed to do with the body?" and SAIC is the School of Art Institute of Chicago.  
> 4\. The title is taken from a song of the same name by Philip Selway.  
> 5\. Additional post publication thanks to ghostcat3000 -- y'all know who she is. you know -- for revising some of the spanish in this. I owe her my life but also it's too late because the fact that she sat down and read this means that I'm dead and you will never see me again bye.


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